Last night in Johannesburg it went down to 7 degrees Celsius!!!
Everybody thinks "Africa!!!" but Johannesburg is pretty high and it gets pretty cold at night in winter.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The weird politics of South Africa
Political comments in all parts of the world tend to be weird, unfair and often unfounded, but here in south Africa things get really weird at times.
Zuma, now the president of South Africa, was involved in a scandal about him having unprotected sex with a HIV positive woman. His comment at the time was "but I washed afterwards"...as if it was going to make a difference!!
But now one leader of the opposition, a white woman, made some comment about Zuma being sexist (which he is) and having endangered his wife by having his unprotected sex with an HIv positive woman. The answer came back that Helen Zille (the woman who said this) is a "racist girl" (racist I have not doubt that she is, "girl" I would have to argue that she is well past that point) and she is accused of having her own harem of males in her cabinet because she appointed males only. Zuma then accused her of being sexist and racist for appointing only white males in her cabinet. Now that I can live with this comment a lot better than the "harem" comment. I cannot beleive that she would be dumb enough to indeed only have white males in her cabinet!!!!
The ANC youth League threatened to take militant actions against Helen Zille but then again there has been quite a few threats of violence from the ANC Youth League just about anything at all they don't like, so that is just the thing one would expect.
So here it goes. He is sexist, she is racist and likely sexist too (she couldn't even find one woman)and the ANC Youth League continues to talk about violence against who ever they do not like.... just another day in the political world of South Africa.
If you want to read more here is the BBC's report on it.
Zuma, now the president of South Africa, was involved in a scandal about him having unprotected sex with a HIV positive woman. His comment at the time was "but I washed afterwards"...as if it was going to make a difference!!
But now one leader of the opposition, a white woman, made some comment about Zuma being sexist (which he is) and having endangered his wife by having his unprotected sex with an HIv positive woman. The answer came back that Helen Zille (the woman who said this) is a "racist girl" (racist I have not doubt that she is, "girl" I would have to argue that she is well past that point) and she is accused of having her own harem of males in her cabinet because she appointed males only. Zuma then accused her of being sexist and racist for appointing only white males in her cabinet. Now that I can live with this comment a lot better than the "harem" comment. I cannot beleive that she would be dumb enough to indeed only have white males in her cabinet!!!!
The ANC youth League threatened to take militant actions against Helen Zille but then again there has been quite a few threats of violence from the ANC Youth League just about anything at all they don't like, so that is just the thing one would expect.
So here it goes. He is sexist, she is racist and likely sexist too (she couldn't even find one woman)and the ANC Youth League continues to talk about violence against who ever they do not like.... just another day in the political world of South Africa.
If you want to read more here is the BBC's report on it.
unreadable blog
I know english is not my first language, but I just re-read my last post and the number of errors in it actually made it impossible to read it.
Wow, I am a lot more stressed than I thought.
Wow, I am a lot more stressed than I thought.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Timbuktu / Timbouctou
I don't know if I have ever mentioned it but I have been thinking for a while that I would like to go to Timbuktu (that the English spelling; Timbouctou is the french spelling).
Today in the book store I saw a book "the meanings of Timbuktu" it was a collection of paper from a conference on the History of Timbuktu with obviously particular emphasis on the manuscripts which are there and the old universities.
I'd love to go to Timbuktu but mostly I want to go to Mopti.
Now I remember typing the name "Mopti" so I must have blogged about it earlier.
Today in the book store I saw a book "the meanings of Timbuktu" it was a collection of paper from a conference on the History of Timbuktu with obviously particular emphasis on the manuscripts which are there and the old universities.
I'd love to go to Timbuktu but mostly I want to go to Mopti.
Now I remember typing the name "Mopti" so I must have blogged about it earlier.
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